Bill C-415 (Historical)

Expungement of Certain Cannabis-related Convictions Act

An Act to establish a procedure for expunging certain cannabis-related convictions

This enactment establishes a procedure for expunging certain cannabis-related convictions and provides for the destruction or removal of the judicial records of those convictions that are in federal repositories and systems.

Criminal Records Act

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague to the south, who has been representing very ably the riding that was, until very recently and for a long time, represented by my dear friend and colleague Gord Brown. Those were big shoes to fill. I know I am expressing a view that is shared by many in his constituency when I say that my colleague is doing a very admirable job, and my hat is off to him for that.

This is my second opportunity to address Bill C-93 and my third to address the issue of pardons for the formerly criminal act of simple possession of cannabis. I was also able to address the private member's bill, Bill C-415, which was moved in the name of our colleague from Victoria.

I want to focus my remarks primarily on the contrast between the expungement model in Bill C-415 and the record suspension or pardon model in Bill C-93. Looking at this bill and the comments raised in committee persuades me of the truth of a remark that was made in committee by a criminal defence lawyer, Solomon Friedman, who said:

I should first note that Bill C-93 is better than nothing. But better than nothing is a mighty low bar for our Parliament. You can do better. You must do better. Instead, I would urge a scheme of expungement along the lines already provided for in the Expungement of Historically Unjust Convictions Act.

That act was, of course, passed by this Parliament at the instigation of the current government, which revealed that expungement is, at least in principle, possible for the former offence of simple possession of cannabis.

Better than nothing turns out to be the equivalent, in practice, of very little at all. Parole Board officials testifying before the committee studying this bill estimated that out of the 250,000 to 500,000 Canadians with convictions for cannabis possession, only 10,000 would apply for a record suspension or expedited pardon.

I will make two comments. First, I am not sure how much precision or accuracy we can expect in the prediction of 10,000 from people who said that the number of records out there is somewhere between 250,000 and 500,000. That is a substantial margin of error. Additionally, if it is 10,000, why so few? The answer, in part, is the incredibly bureaucratic nature of the process under Bill C-93. When looking at Bill C-93, one gets the impression that the government looked at all available options for dealing with this issue and selected the most bureaucratic one it could find.

Let me quote from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, a supporter of this bill, and my point will be made. In promotion of the bill, she said:

[W]hy not just do it like some California municipalities and erase all the records with the press of a button? We do have an electronic police database of criminal records here in Canada, however, that database does not contain enough information to allow for a proactive amnesty....

[The] Parole Board should explore options for moving towards a more digitized system capable of receiving applications electronically, something particularly important for Canadians in rural areas.

That system would be in the future, not under this bill. That is a reference to the problems of getting access to broadband Internet in rural areas.

The parliamentary secretary then said:

In the meantime, the Parole Board is taking a number of steps to simplify the application process in other ways. It is simplifying its website and application form. It is creating a dedicated, toll-free phone number and an email address to help people with their applications.

In other words, none of this stuff is available, and it will take some time before that happens. She continued:

It is developing a community outreach strategy with a particular focus on the communities most [likely to be] affected by the criminalization of cannabis to make sure that people know about this new expedited process and how to access it...

We will need an advertising campaign.

This is going to be slow and complicated. By contrast, what would have happened under an expungement system? Expungement is nothing the government ever considered. Indeed, it seems not to have even thought of this possibility. Under expungement, we would simply say that the government would act as if any record that stated that a person had been convicted for possession of cannabis did not actually exist. If we found it, we simply would say there was nothing there.

This is done by the courts all the time. Any correspondence between lawyers done on a without prejudice basis, whether or not the words “without prejudice” are put at the front of the various pieces of correspondence, is automatically disregarded by a court. They have no ability to present it as evidence in a proceeding.

Similarly, we could do the same thing with records. This would overcome the problem of having different records kept in different ways, some on paper and some electronically, in different jurisdictions. They would simply have no existence in law. Because it is such a common conviction, when one was accessed, we would understand that it simply did not exist for the purpose of being used by any law enforcement official. That is how we could introduce expungement. This would eliminate all the bureaucracy, all the application fees that are necessary, which would still exist under this proposal, all the time, all the work and all the money that would have to be expended. There is a cost estimate, which I find hard to believe, attached to this bill. There would be zero cost with an expungement system.

In all fairness, the bill is better now than it was before it went to committee and came back with amendments. This is thanks, in part, to an amendment proposed by the member for Toronto—Danforth.

I will again read from the parliamentary secretary's words to give members an idea of what was done. She stated:

thanks to an amendment at committee from the member for Toronto—Danforth, people will be able to apply [for a pardon] even if they have outstanding fines associated with their cannabis possession conviction.

Due to an amendment we voted on at report stage...people whose only sentence was a fine will not be required to submit court documents as part of their application.

Finding these court documents was part of the supposedly costless, expedited process until this amendment was made.

On the other hand, a further suggested amendment, put forward by the Conservatives, was accepted at committee and then subsequently rejected by the government.

I will quote from our Conservative critic on this issue, who stated, “We proposed a measure to allow applicants whose records were destroyed to swear an affidavit explaining their situation and certifying that they are eligible”, which of course creates some paperwork but is less complicated than what we are left with. He went on to say, “This would have made the process even more fair. The Liberals agreed to this amendment in committee but changed their minds at report stage and decided to reject it.”

That would have helped relieve some of the bureaucracy. There are certain costs that continue to exist, and this prompted one person to quip, I think very appropriately, that the bill should not have been entitled an act to provide no-cost, expedited record suspensions for simple possession of cannabis, but rather, an act to provide for lower-cost, somewhat expedited record suspensions for simple possession of cannabis.

In the remaining minute and a half of my time, I want to deal with another important issue. Getting a pardon essentially equals getting forgiveness. People have done something wrong, we forgive them, and we move on. Expungement is a way of saying that what they did was not wrong in the first place. There are some offences for which this might not be true, even if we eliminated them retrospectively. I think, in the case of cannabis possession, it is clear that our ancestors, those who came before us, did not make it legal because they felt it was morally wrong to ingest or use marijuana. They thought it was the best way to protect people from their own unwise instincts. It was a wrong move. It did not work. It ruined a lot of lives, but those people were not put in prison because they had done something that was evil or wrong or would harm the rest of society. Therefore, removing this is entirely appropriate. We need not save expungement, as the government has proposed, only for the righting of historical wrongs based on laws that are now prohibited under the charter. I suggest that, in this case, it is also appropriate, and I urge all of us to consider, as we look forward to the future, the expungement model, perhaps in a second piece of legislation in the 43rd Parliament.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Madam Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-93, an act that would provide for the possibility of a record suspension for a conviction in relation to the minor possession of cannabis.

I support the legislation. However, while I support it, I do so reluctantly. I support it because in the absence of other legislation, it is the best we have at this present time. However, it need not have been that way.

A bill was put forward by the hon. member for Victoria, Bill C-415, that would have provided for the expungement of records for minor possession. I would submit that Bill C-415 was a much better approach than Bill C-93 introduced by the government. I was very proud to stand in support of Bill C-415 when it came to a vote at second reading. It is very unfortunate that the Liberals across the way, almost uniformly one by one, voted that legislation down.

Why is Bill C-415 better than Bill C-93?

One of the distinctions between the bills is the difference between an expungement and a record suspension. Oftentimes there is confusion of whether they are one and the same or more or less substantively the same, but they are substantively different. An expungement is the deletion, it is the removal of a record. If people are asked if they had ever been convicted of the offence of minor possession, they can honestly answer, no, that they have not because that record is expunged; it is removed. It is as though that offence and that conviction never occurred. Bill C-415 would have provided that.

By contrast, Bill C-93 provides something quite different. In order to obtain a record suspension, one must apply to the National Parole Board. While the Liberals pat themselves on the back for waiving the $631 fee, the fact is that there are significant costs associated with applying to the National Parole Board for a record suspension. Those costs can include such things as finger printing and other searches of records that may be required. So complicated is an application for many individuals, that there are individuals who provide services on a for-profit basis and charge anywhere from $1,800 to $2,000 to apply for a record suspension. It is nice that the Liberals waived the fee, but again it does not address the other costs, time and effort that will be required in order to apply.

Second, under Bill C-93, the burden falls on the applicant to obtain a record suspension. If people happen to be convicted in relation to another offence, they need not apply because they do not qualify. More than half a million Canadians have been convicted of minor possession. By the way, almost half of Canadians have said that they have consumed a minor amount of cannabis.

Half a million Canadians have been convicted. According to departmental officials who appeared before the public safety committee, the estimated number of individuals who would be eligible to apply was around 250,000 Canadians. Right off the bat, half of Canadians who have been convicted of minor possession are disqualified. Why should they be disqualified?

Why should they be disqualified from having their record suspended, and frankly it should be expunged, for committing an offence that today is perfectly legal? It is an activity that the Prime Minister bragged about engaging in before it was legal, when in fact the Prime Minister was a sitting member of Parliament. He was never charged. He was not convicted. He very proudly sloughed it off.

However, a lot of Canadians who were not so lucky as the Prime Minister are burdened with a conviction. Then, if they happen to go through the application, establish that they qualify and obtain a record suspension, it is not over. Why is it not over then? The record is not deleted. It just goes from one national database to another. At some point in the future, perhaps the individual who has obtained a record suspension will have a traffic ticket violation, and the Parole Board might try to reimpose that conviction on the basis that the individual is no longer of good conduct. There are examples of that and there was testimony to that effect at the public safety committee.

That is not to mention the fact that the minister has broad discretion to share those records where the minister deems it to be in the interests of public safety or where there is some other security purpose. Again, even after one has gone through the cumbersome process, the record continues to hang over one's head.

The consequences of having a conviction are serious. It is an impediment to employment. It can be an impediment to housing. It can be an impediment to being able to volunteer in one's community. All this is for committing an offence that is perfectly legal today.

I did not support marijuana legalization, but it seems to me that if the government is going to go down that road, and it has chosen to go down that road, expungement should be part and parcel of that legalization. It is why, of the 23 U.S. states that have either legalized or decriminalized minor possession, seven states have provided for an amnesty, and six of those states have provided for expungement.

Again, that is something the government has opted not to do. Instead, it has established a costly, burdensome process that in the end is going to exclude nearly half of the Canadians who have been convicted of minor possession. It is a half measure that is totally inadequate.

While I support this legislation as being better than nothing, the government could do a lot better than Bill C-93.

Motions in Amendment

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand today to speak to Bill C-93.

I played a fairly significant role in the debates on Bill C-45 in 2017, because at that time I was serving as my party's justice critic. I recognize that the issue of cannabis reform has occupied the public sphere for quite some time.

I listened to my Conservative colleagues during the debate on Bill C-45 and in today's debate, and I note they favour a strong criminal justice approach. They admit that the problem in question has to do with concerns over mental health and youth getting inappropriate access to large amounts of cannabis. As we know, too much consumption of cannabis can have consequences.

I have always believed that the criminal law approach to drug reform and drug policy is in a sense like using a sledgehammer to hit a nail. I believe that if we want to talk about social and health problems, we really need to focus our policy tools and levers on making sure that our health and social services have the tools to provide not only education regarding the possible harms of over-consumption of certain substances, but also support services to people who feel they have a problem. We should remove the stigma of criminality and of being an outcast among a group of friends or family and community, so that people have the ability to get the help they need. I believe policies like this have been shown to be very effective.

With respect to the harshness of other drugs, especially given the opioid crisis and the heroin crisis, we can look to countries like Portugal, which have moved to a more social- and health-related policy for their drug problems. They saw significant results from that. Portugal went from being a country that used to have one of the highest rates of opioid deaths per capita in Europe to having one of the lowest.

When it comes to cannabis, I believe we had this debate, in large part, with respect to Bill C-45. Bill C-45 did not necessarily legalize cannabis, but rather made it less illegal, because in the provisions of Bill C-45, the consequences for stepping outside the boundaries of the law are in fact quite severe.

I come from a part of the country where attitudes toward cannabis possession and use are quite liberal. Many people on Vancouver Island, and indeed in British Columbia, have long regarded the crime of cannabis possession and use to be outdated and belonging in the previous century. Of course, we are very much looking forward not only to seeing the law reformed but also to seeing the injustice of the criminality addressed.

Unfortunately, when we look at the timeline, it is quite obvious that the Liberal government has not treated this particular issue of Bill C-93 with the seriousness it deserves. As my colleagues will remember, when Bill C-45 was introduced, it was already April 2017. I believe that particular bill received royal assent later that year. However, it was not until October 2018 that it had its provisions for coming into force. In other words, we were well into the third year of the government's mandate before Bill C-45 came into effect and cannabis use and possession were legalized.

Another problem is that police in different jurisdictions in Canada have different approaches. I have spoken to members of the police forces in Vancouver Island, whether in the RCMP or in municipal police forces, and they always tell me that with their limited resources, they have always had far bigger problems to go after than cannabis possession. By and large, when they have caught people with cannabis, they have usually just seized it and told them to please go on their way and not do that in public. However, we know that in other parts of Canada, the full force of the law has been brought to bear on people who possess even tiny quantities of cannabis.

Despite the record and the fact that the government has admitted this is a problem and has acknowledged the injustices, it is only now, in the dying days of the 42nd Parliament, that we are actually dealing with a bill that could have a substantive effect.

The government still has a very heavy legislative agenda before it. The House has just recently passed a motion to extend its sitting hours. We know that the other place, the Senate, is certainly showing true to its form as a new independent body. There is a lot of government legislation that is really up in the air right now, and I am not quite sure that Bill C-93 is going to have enough time to reach the finish line. Moreover, I think it does far too little.

The member for Victoria had a perfect blueprint for the government to follow in the version of Bill C-415. Rather than going through the pardon process, as Bill C-93 is doing, his bill would seek to expunge all previous crimes of personal possession from the record.

I like the word expungement, because it has an air of permanence about it. Expungement basically means that the crime never occurred. It is completely erased from the record. We have something that is now legal in Canada, and we have acknowledged the injustice of it, so it should be expunged from the record of any person who may have been charged with that crime back in the 1970s and 1980s. Such individuals could truthfully state to any official that they have never been charged with or convicted of such a crime.

The problem with a record suspension or a pardon, and we use those words interchangeably, is that the record is going to be set aside but would still exist. Moreover, when travellers go to other countries, such as the United States, which has very harsh drug laws, there is nothing in the bill that would actually tackle the problem of the United States still having those records on its systems. That, indeed, is a big problem.

The major criticism I have of the Liberal government is that instead of going all the way, it often resorts to half measures. We had a beautiful opportunity before us in this Parliament, through Bill C-415, to substantively tackle this issue.

My party, the NDP, has a long history of fighting for this issue. Just in this Parliament, if we go back to June 2016, we used one of our opposition day motions to fight for decriminalization. The Liberals have always argued that decriminalization is not an effective policy, but we always argued that it should be a policy that is employed as an interim measure as we went on to legalization. If we had had that in place for those three years, a lot of Canadians could have avoided those run-ins with the police and with the criminal justice system, which I think many in this place can agree has far bigger problems to deal with using its limited resources. We raised this, as I mentioned, in the debate on Bill C-45 and, of course, through Bill C-415.

I can recognize that there are parts of this proposed legislation that will certainly have a benefit for some people. However, that is precisely the problem: Not everyone is actually going to take advantage of the provisions. It is nice that the fee is going to be waived and that there is an expedited process, but still there is the problem of going through that, and the fact that some people have greater resources than others and will be able to benefit from this much more. I still think expungement would have been the better route, and I will remind my constituents that there was one party in the House of Commons that was fighting for expungement.

I cannot give my support to a half measure, not when we had a better option before us. Therefore, on principle, I will vote against this legislation. I will vote against it because there was a better way, and I am not going to let the Liberal government get away with another half measure without firmly standing in my place on behalf of my constituents and voicing my displeasure at the loss of what was a beautiful opportunity.

Criminal Records Act

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, first let me say something about Bill C-415. After it was over, the member for Victoria, who is always a gentleman, sent out letters to members who had voted in favour of the bill to thank them. I wrote back to him and thanked him for having raised this issue in such a thoughtful, intelligent way and that the entire country owed him a debt of thanks for having done so. I am glad to get that on the record. I feel quite strongly about what a service he did for all of us.

With regard to the issue of these being charter-related incidents, this is a matter that was before the House. There was a committee struck to deal with the issue of systemic racism, Motion No. 103, in the name of the member for Mississauga—Erin Mills. That is to say, as one witness put it, the racism that exists when the racists are gone.

The shadow of administrative racism exists, and it is very hard, as a practical matter, to address these in the form of charter challenges. We can see why this would be the case. There is a pattern of arrests, for example, a statistical phenomenon, but no one act has caused this. It is very hard to engage in charter litigation on it, although better minds than mine have been put to that question.

This is fundamentally a civil liberties issue, and I use that advisedly. However, it is important to point this out. If the member heard all my remarks, he will be aware that I mentioned two examples of racial groups, indigenous people in Saskatchewan and blacks in Nova Scotia, who have been arrested at several multiples of times as the rate for whites in those areas.

This is also an issue in an electoral district like my own, which is almost entirely white. Those who are poor, who are members of the social underclass, who suffer from mental illnesses, who have fetal alcohol effect, have genetic disorders, a gene that makes people more prone to becoming addicted, or an impulse control gene, are more likely to face prosecution and therefore institutional persecution. It is inherently unfair to them as well.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for supporting and mentioning my colleague, the member for Victoria, and his private members bill, Bill C-415, that calls for the expungement of all criminal records for people charged with simple cannabis possession.

The member mentioned the fact that the Liberals have said that the reason they do not want expungement is that it is very special and is only for crimes that we now think, through the charter, should never have been crimes. Yet most of the charges of possession of cannabis have come about from arguably charter-related incidents, where racialized Canadians, Canadians of colour, poor Canadians and indigenous Canadians have been vastly overrepresented in these charges. This could be easily related to our charter.

I am just wondering if the member could comment on that aspect of it. These are crimes that we do not believe are crimes anymore, and we should just expunge these records so that people do not have records anymore and we can let them get on with their lives.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon's debate on Bill C-93, an act to provide no-cost, expedited record suspensions for simple possession of cannabis, gives me the chance I have long sought to make a clear statement in the House of Commons as to the principles that underlie my long-standing views on cannabis legalization. This is actually my second chance, as I was also able to do so in addressing the private member's bill on the same subject a couple of weeks ago.

I have long favoured the legalization of marijuana. Indeed, I have favoured it since I first sought elected office, almost 20 years ago. My views on the subject were first expressed at a public policy conference in 2001 and published in Policy Options the same year, so my comments on this subject have been on the record for a very long time.

I have always couched my arguments in practical rather than abstract terms. However, the debate today, like the one a couple of weeks ago, allows me to discuss the civil liberties issues associated with the war on drugs separate from the discussion of marijuana legalization. We are not discussing marijuana legalization today. That deed is done and cannabis is legal. If this bill is defeated tonight, cannabis will still be legal. If after tonight's discussion the bill goes on to receive royal assent by the end of this Parliament, cannabis will retain the same legal status.

Tonight we are not talking about the impact that chemicals in drugs could have if we were to legalize them. Today we can say that this is irrelevant to the discussion. We are talking purely about the harm caused by the act of turning a victimless act into a crime.

Today, I want to say, as I did 18 years ago when I first published on the subject, that it is morally wrong to criminalize the personal use of any substance when the use or misuse of that substance would cause no harm to any individual other than the user himself or herself. The act of ingesting cannabis or alcohol, for example, and then driving a vehicle on a public roadway endangers others and is not a victimless crime. That is why it is illegal. That is why it ought to be illegal. However, consuming cannabis and then staying home for the weekend is victimless. For that matter, consuming alcohol and staying home for the weekend is also victimless.

When no person is victimized, other than the person engaged in the act, then it is a moral evil for the state to penalize the person who engages in that act. This principle would apply even if it were the case that none of the following conditions were true.

This principle would apply even if it were not the case, for example, that some people suffer from trauma that causes them to make impulsive choices, especially with regard to mood-altering substances. When these individuals are penalized, the law in effect singles out for punishment those who have suffered from the abusive behaviour of parents or partners, or from the trauma of war, or from fetal alcohol syndrome, or from simple brain trauma. The principle that victimless acts should never be punishable would apply even if it were not true that some people are endowed from birth with genes such as the NRXN3 gene, which in 2011 was identified as being associated with a greater likelihood of becoming addicted. In this case, the law is singling out for prosecution those who have lost the genetic lottery.

The principle would apply even if it were not true that those who have greater influence and power are far less likely to be prosecuted than an average Canadian who has committed the same offence. A case that makes this point is that of the Prime Minister's brother, Michel Trudeau, who escaped prosecution for marijuana possession 21 years ago because of the intervention of his father, who was at the time himself a prime minister.

Here is how our current Prime Minister put this in a speech two years ago. He reported that back in 1998, his father, Pierre Trudeau, “reached out to his friends in the legal community, got the best possible lawyer and was very confident that he was going to be able to make those charges go away.” He continued, “We were able to do that because we had resources, my dad had a couple of connections, and we were confident that my little brother wasn't going to be saddled with a criminal record for life.”

The principle that no one should be punished for a victimless act would be true even if it were not the case that disadvantaged Canadians who are statistically more likely than their fellow citizens to be caught, prosecuted and saddled with a criminal record for life are far likelier to be members of social or racial groups that appear to be marginalized in other ways too.

Two criminologists from the University of Toronto found that in the period of 2015 to 2017 in Halifax, black people were five times more likely than white people to be arrested for cannabis possession. The same researchers found that in Regina, in the same period, 2015 to 2017, very recent history, indigenous persons were nine times more likely than white people to be arrested for this offence.

Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, who was one of the two criminologists, stated, “We know that rates of cannabis use are relatively similar across racial groups. So the fact that specific groups have been disproportionately targeted for drug law enforcement, especially black and Indigenous populations, strengthens that need for amnesty and for pardons. Because those groups have not only been disproportionately targeted, they have been disproportionately harmed by the consequences of having a criminal record.”

Therefore, it is not merely the issue of cannabis legalization that affects people on a racial basis. It is the removal of those byproducts of that racialization of the legal system. Given these facts, I think we can say that this is the very definition of systemic racism, regardless of the proximate cause of each individual arrest.

Of course, the foregoing examples of inequity really do exist and therefore, the provision of the Criminal Code prohibiting the possession of small quantities of marijuana, which happily is now repealed, was wrong at all of these levels too.

If the underlying offence ought never to have been an offence in the first place, which is not merely what I feel but what has already been decided by Parliament when it enacted the Cannabis Act a year ago, then it stands to reason that the retention of any long-term penalty such as a criminal record for the formerly unlawful activity must be wrong for exactly the same reasons. This is true whether it is a charter-protected right that we are talking about or whether it is merely the practical impact on some groups that have been discriminated against in the application of the law. It is true even when the issue is not whether the wrong is a charter prohibited wrong but whether it is merely a wrong when viewed from the point of view of natural justice, a point which is of very considerable significance when we speak about the distinction of the reasons why the government will not issue record expungements as it has done for offences under the Criminal Code at a time when homosexual acts between consenting adults were illegal.

To be clear, the retention of criminal records for persons who used marijuana when it was a criminal offence represented an ongoing injustice and represents today an ongoing injustice that must be remedied. Quite frankly, a provision expunging the records of persons found guilty of possessing less than 30 grams of cannabis ought to have been included in the Cannabis Act a year ago. Why it was not, particularly given the heartfelt civil libertarian sentiment that must have been the motivation for the Prime Minister to share that very personal story about his father and late brother, remains a mystery to me. I note that in other jurisdictions that have legalized the non-therapeutic use of cannabis, the recreational use of cannabis, such as California and Vermont, provisions expunging the records of those convicted under the repealed statutes are part of the repeal legislation itself.

Now, it is too late for Canada to make a perfect copy of that enlightened example, but it is not too late for us to correct the oversight. Bill C-415 standing in the name of my colleague, the member for Victoria, was an effective and well-designed instrument for achieving an end to this lingering injustice.

Bill C-93 is a less perfect and less complete way of achieving the same end for many, although not all, of those who face this injustice. About 500,000 Canadians, which is around 1% to 2% of our adult population, have criminal records for the possession of small amounts of cannabis for personal consumption. Had Bill C-415 passed, it would have expunged all these records.

An expungement is not quite the same thing as a pardon or record suspension, which is what the current piece of legislation, Bill C-93, proposes. It differs in a number of ways. For one thing, a pardon must be formally requested. Any person can apply for a pardon, but under normal circumstances, only after waiting for a period of not less than five years, in the case of a summary conviction, and only upon the payment of a fee of just over $600. Had Bill C-415 gone forward, expungement would have been immediate and costless.

Bill C-93 would not do quite the same thing. The bill's very long title tells the entire story. People would not pay a cost and there would be no waiting time, but they would have to make the application, and then the Parole Board would decide whether to issue that pardon, if the applicants met a series of conditions. It is therefore called an act to provide no-cost, expedited record suspensions for simple possession of cannabis. It would get rid of the five-year waiting period and eliminate the $600 fee, and that is it. As far as it goes, that is good, and for this reason, I will be voting for the bill in principle, to send it off to committee later on this evening.

However, I want to be clear. Bill C-93 does not go far enough, because a record suspension is not an expungement. Unlike an expungement, a record suspension does not result in the permanent destruction of a record of a conviction in federal databases. Unlike expungement, where the person is deemed under Canadian law never to have been convicted of the offence in the first place, one would still be guilty of that offence. One would still have been convicted. It is just that no one could see that anymore.

There are some significant, meaningful differences here. As everyone knows, American border control officials reserve the right to ask Canadians who are crossing the border if they have a criminal record for using marijuana. Canadians are regularly turned back at the border if the answer is yes. Everyone should know that if people answer this question untruthfully and lie to an official of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services while on American soil, as people do when they are going across a land border, as opposed to in the Toronto or Vancouver airports, where they do so while on Canadian soil, they can be arrested on the spot. If records were expunged, but not if pardons were issued, it would be possible for people to answer truthfully, whether travelling by land or air, that they did not have a criminal record for this former offence. This is a very meaningful distinction.

The government uses the following rationale for not using expungement in the case of cannabis offences. I am quoting from the Liberals' press release of March 1, 2019, which is the day Bill C-93 came out. It said:

Expungement is an extraordinary measure reserved for cases where the criminalization of the activity in question and the law never should have existed, such as in cases where it violated the Charter.

I just want to be clear about what is wrong with that logic. The Liberals were making specific reference to the fact that consenting homosexual acts were once illegal, and now any law that prohibits them is regarded as a violation of the charter. It is true that this is a charter distinction, whereas cannabis could be recriminalized without violating the charter. That is about the charter. It is not about the morality of the underlying act. We have said in Canada that there is nothing wrong with consuming cannabis for personal use and possessing small amounts for personal use. There is nothing wrong with it.

I defy any member of the government to stand up here and say that she or he believes that it was morally wrong, that the underlying act was morally wrong a year ago or two years ago or 10 years ago or 50 years ago, that it was morally wrong then and it is morally okay now, any more than it was morally wrong to commit a homosexual act 10 or 20 or 100 years ago and now it is okay.

The fact is that it was never wrong in the case of a consenting gay act between adults, and it was never wrong with regard to cannabis. This distinction, which has to do with what made it into the charter and what did not, because sexual orientation almost did not make it into the charter, is just nonsense.

The fact is that more people who are marginalized because they are poor, mentally ill or come from a group that suffers racial discrimination, and there are different kinds of racial discrimination in different parts of the country, are being prosecuted and persecuted, and they have been in the past. The fact that the cops have been acting in a racist way in different parts of the country at different times does not make what happened to these people somehow less bad than what happened to people who were convicted for committing the supposed crime of engaging in consensual homosexual activity. This is a nonsense distinction.

I point out that I was down in Washington, D.C., last week meeting with members of the House of Representatives in the Senate, who are considering making changes to their cannabis laws. They are not necessarily looking at legalizing it for recreational purposes, as we are doing here, although some favour that. Many want to look at medical marijuana changes, which would make it available to veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. One bill would prohibit officials of the U.S. border services from asking Canadians if they have a cannabis-related conviction. Another one would deal with interstate banking laws as they affect cannabis operations that are legal under state law.

In the United States, they are very aware of the civil liberties issues and the racially inequitable way in which these laws have been applied in their country. The word that is used universally when discussing getting rid of criminal records is “expungement”. There is no reason in the world the government should not accept expungement of these records.

This bill, as I have said, is good as far as it goes. Later on this evening, I will be voting for it, and I encourage my colleagues to do so. However, it is not good enough. It is not acceptable to leave a systemically racist pattern of law enforcement in effect after we have said that the crime itself should never have been a crime and that it was never wrong and is not wrong.

It was okay for the Prime Minister, who was never caught, to use pot when it was illegal. He just did not get caught. He admitted after the fact that he used it. Somehow that is okay, right? I never heard him say that he used it when it was illegal and that it was morally wrong then. I never heard him say that if he had been caught, it would have been right for him to go to prison or to have a criminal record for life. He did not say that. He said that it should not have been wrong, so we are getting rid of that law. He was right about that. He would have been right to make sure that nobody who did not have a prime minister for a dad or the world's best Rolodex would ever face a situation of having a criminal record for life.

The bill is good; it is not good enough. I will be voting for it. I will be very much encouraging members on the committee to vote for some form of amendment to encapsulate the very important consideration brought forward by my colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley about taking care of those who have some kind of minor procedural item on their criminal records and are therefore going to face this being left on their records for life. It is an excellent idea. I hope the Liberal government will show some flexibility in this regard. It would be an excellent litmus test of whether the purpose of this bill is to help people or to simply take an issue away from the New Democratic Party, which produced an earlier and better bill on the same subject.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley.

Colleagues, 50 years ago, the eminent astronomer Carl Sagan wrote an article under the pseudonym Mr. X. He wrote about cannabis, noting that “the illegality of cannabis is outrageous”. He said, on legalization specifically, “I hope that time isn’t too distant”.

That was 50 years ago.

I am going to start by commending and recognizing the progress we have made. If someone had asked me five or 10 years ago whether I would see cannabis legalized in my lifetime, I would have been incredibly skeptical, yet in October of last year, that is exactly what the government did, following through on a significant promise to treat it as a public health issue but also to treat Canadians as the responsible adults we are.

I will support Bill C-93. It would waive the five-year waiting period. It would waive the $631 fee.

The Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction has noted that as many as 400,000 Canadians have criminal records for simple possession of cannabis. That is something we ought to correct as much as possible, because we know the impact of a criminal record on one's ability to secure housing, employment and ability to travel.

I will be supporting Bill C-93, but that, to me, is obvious and straightforward. I also think the bill ought to go further, and I hope to see the committee make amendments so that it does.

First, Canadians and colleagues should understand the difference between a pardon and an expungement. According to the Parole Board of Canada, the purpose of a record suspension or a pardon is to remove barriers to reintegration that can be associated with a criminal record. The idea is that we say, “You are forgiven. Move on with your life.” With respect to expungement, the government recognizes that the conviction was for an act that should never have been a crime at all and that these individuals should not be viewed as former offenders. Instead, we say, “We are sorry. We made a mistake. We should never have done this in the first place.”

With respect to cannabis possession, and we are not talking about trafficking, it is straightforward that we never should have made this a crime in the first place and that expungement is the proper answer.

The government has made technical arguments with respect to travel. I trust that the committee will address those. There is no difference at the American border with respect to a pardon or an expungement. In the hands of the American officers, they enforce their laws as they see fit. We should be concerned with our domestic laws.

I will say this. If we can help people move forward with their lives in a more significant way, we should seize the opportunity. An expungement will help Canadians who are impacted by a criminal record more so than a pardon would.

Again, just as a clarifying note on the difference between a pardon and expungement, this really hits home when we see the great differences between governments. We are seeing this in Ontario right now, where the pendulum is swinging so incredibly hard in the opposite direction. A different government could actually restore records when people have been pardoned. The records are simply set aside. A different government could never restore criminal records if they were properly deleted through the expungement process.

I commend the member from Victoria for putting Bill C-415 forward, but I would also note that this is grassroots Liberal policy. I am going to read a resolution from the 2012 Liberal biennial convention put forward by the Young Liberals of Canada and supported by over 80% of grassroots Liberals at the time:

Be it further resolved that a new Liberal government will extend amnesty to all Canadians previously convicted of simple and minimal marijuana possession, and ensure the elimination of all criminal records related thereto;

If we want to be consistent with our legalization promise that tracks back to this resolution, amnesty is the answer.

Most significantly, the most important argument is that we have to correct an injustice. The criminalization of cannabis was a racial injustice in original purpose and current effect.

I want to read a direct quote from Harry Anslinger, America's first drug czar. It is not a positive quote. It is an offensive quote. He warned that “Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men.”

Here in Canada, Emily Murphy, one of the Famous Five, an otherwise celebrated women's rights activist, led a temperance movement grounded in the belief that “aliens of colour” used drugs to corrupt the white race.

If we look at the modern application of these laws, we see a Toronto Star investigation from 2017 which found that black people with no criminal record were three times more likely to be arrested for cannabis than white people. That was in 2017. There was a vice investigation subsequently that made access to information requests to police agencies across the country. It found, for example, in Regina, that indigenous people represented 41% of cannabis arrests in 2015 and 2016, but they were only 9.3% of the total population.

We see the Federation of Black Canadians and the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers stand up in support of going further for amnesty. They are doing so because it was a racial injustice. The government argues that the injustice was in the application of the law; it was not inherent in the law. However, for anyone who understands how we interpret our constitutional law and how we might find a law unconstitutional, we consider the purpose of the law, but we also consider the effect of the law. So too with respect to expungement, it is not only if it is inherently an injustice, but also if it is an applied injustice.

It is arguable whether the original purpose, as I have noted, ought not to be considered as well when we talk about the injustice. I would argue that this was inherently an injustice. I read the Le Dain commission in 1970, which said, “There can be no doubt that Canada’s drug laws were for a long time primarily associated in the minds of its legislators and the public with general attitudes and policy towards persons of Asiatic origin.”

The point is this. We fear different drugs today because we used to fear different people.

The last point I want to make is that if we set aside the most important arguments with respect to racial injustice and we consider basic common sense, almost half of Canadians have self-reported using cannabis in their lifetime. Are half of Canadians criminals? When cannabis is less harmful than the six-pack that people take to a party or a mickey of vodka, should people who possess cannabis, again not traffickers, ever be thought of as criminals? The obvious answer is no, in the same way that I do not think if people take a six-pack to a party they are criminals. In taking a less harmful substance, they ought not to be considered criminals, and we as legislators should cure that. We have the capacity to cure it. We could cure that simply by improving the law before us.

The simple question that we all have to answer is whether the conduct in question is deserving of a criminal record. Demonstrably, the answer is no. It never should have been illegal in the first place.

I support Bill C-93 for moving in the right direction, but we should do what is right when we have the opportunity. We should correct this injustice.

Credit Card Fairness Act

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it always a pleasure to rise to support a colleague's bill, especially when that colleague is the hon. member for Victoria. I admire the way he manages files and provides pertinent answers to our questions when we are discussing the matter with him. I must admit, he has a talent for getting to the heart of the issue.

One thing that is seriously starting to grate on me after nearly eight years in the House of Commons is having to say that a bill is a step in the right direction. It is as though we are never able to fully resolve an issue and close a file and say that the matter is resolved and we can tackle another problem and find the best solutions.

That is exactly what the member for Victoria has done with this bill, however; he even stated what he sadly cannot do within the confines of a private member's bill. Nevertheless, he still very much hopes that Bill C-415 will get the ball rolling and motivate the government to either add what he was not able to include and pass this bill or, alternatively, overhaul Bill C-93, the counterpart of this bill that, to my mind, is not up to snuff.

After speaking with my colleague from Victoria, I was preparing a theoretical and even intellectual presentation on the merits of expunging records for simple possession of cannabis compared to the suspension of records. However, reality caught up with me in my riding. I will therefore provide an overview of a case I had to deal with in my own riding and which clearly shows, in black and white, that the government's Bill C-93 does not go far enough and that Bill C-415 really does take a step in the right direction. I do not believe you could find a better example.

I got a phone call from one of my constituents who was in a bit of a panic. Actually, it was a complete panic. I will not name names or say anything that would give away this person's identity, but he is a musician. I have a soft spot for those in the music business because I was a musician myself for many years. This particular musician is on an international tour with a band. They have played in England, several European countries, and many cities across Canada. Now the band is set to play 15 or 20 American cities. Things are going well. It is probably the best tour of this musician's career. A musician's life is not necessarily easy and it is not always a very lucrative career either. Artists really have to have a strong conviction that they are making an essential contribution to society.

Everything is going well for this musician. The whole group, both the musicians and the trucks with the equipment, arrive at the American border. They fill out the necessary paperwork and cross the border. Everyone gets through no problem except for this individual, because border officials saw that he had been charged with simple marijuana possession 25 years ago for one gram of cannabis that he forgot was in his pocket. He is barred from entering the U.S. The band is supposed to play 15 to 20 shows in the United States and they have just lost one of their musicians. They either have to find a replacement or cancel that leg of the international tour because this individual was charged for the possession of one gram of marijuana 25 years ago.

Obviously, the conviction happened 25 years ago and it is on his record. It is not difficult to imagine how someone could forget this after 25 years. It is kind of laughable, especially since society has evolved in the meantime.

This musician is therefore unable to do the tour. He called me to ask how this situation could be fixed as quickly as possible so that he could join the band for the rest of the American tour, since this record did not cause problems anywhere else in the world.

There are all kinds of conditions that you have to meet. You cannot request a pardon until at least five years have passed since the conviction. After 20 years, that condition is fairly easy to meet. Then, you must pay $631 to apply. Whether this amount is high or not high enough is a matter of perspective, as it is directly linked to the individual's annual income. For a musician, $631 could easily represent one or two shows where he is working for the Crown and not for his family or himself. In addition, he has to track down certain documents, like police reports and legal documents. This takes time, and deciding whether he can continue the tour is a time-sensitive decision.

To top it all off, you have to wait 24 months for a response. There is your answer for the American part of the tour. This is a real problem, since Parliament decided this was no longer a relevant issue in 2019. We legalized simple possession of marijuana. The whole time that this government was preparing the legislation, it never bothered to consider what would happen the day after this bill passed.

How do we make sure that a crime that is not considered a crime anymore no longer weighs on people who committed it in the past? If society has evolved to the point of recognizing marijuana as legal, there is no reason in the world to make people suffer permanently for doing something that is no longer seen as a crime. However, their records live on.

If we go with the record suspension approach proposed in the government's Bill C-93, it would be too little, too late, because the suspension would not make the criminal record disappear. The name says it all. The record is suspended. I will admit that the government is showing openness by eliminating the fee to apply for a record suspension. In contrast, the process of expungement is very clear. With expungement, all existing files relating to the conviction are erased, and the slate is wiped clean, as if the crime had ever happened. That also enables anyone with such a conviction on their record to answer “no” with perfect confidence and honesty whenever they are asked if they have a criminal record, because the record has basically disappeared and the offence is deemed never to have been committed. That is an important difference proposed in Bill C-415.

My time is almost up. I had so much more to talk about, but the case I mentioned is probably more compelling than anything I could say. I urge all members to make sure they really understand the difference between expungement and suspension and to support the bill introduced by my colleague from Victoria.

Criminal Records Act

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to explain at the outset that the NDP will oppose this legislation. Over the next 20 minutes that I have available, I hope to explain why record suspension is not the way to go, and record expungement, which I will describe, is the way to go. Record expungement for simple possession is the basis of my private member's bill, Bill C-415, which will be up for second reading debate in the chamber on Thursday.

I have risen on previous occasions in this place to call Bill C-93 a half-baked measure, and I am still of that opinion. Let me explain: It is too little and it is too late.

It is too little, because record suspension is just that, putting a criminal record aside where it could potentially be used again against the individual. It ignores the historical injustice, the disproportionate impact of cannabis possession offences on marginalized Canadians, on blacks and particularly on indigenous people.

It is too late, because it is almost six months since October when we had the historic legalization of possession of cannabis. Here we are, almost at the end of this parliamentary session, starting second reading debate on the bill. It has to go before committee. It has to go to the Senate. It has to go before Senate committees. I am anxious that this will not be law in Canada, as it will die on the Order Paper until the next Parliament addresses that.

It is especially disappointing because the Liberals have had years to do this. Their excuse was to wait until possession was legal on October 17, 2018. Now we are almost six months later, in the dying days of this Parliament, and suddenly talking about it.

I hope that cynicism is not warranted. I hope there is goodwill on the part of the government to fix the bill and move it forward expeditiously. However, I have my doubts.

My private member's bill, which is the counter to this piece of legislation, would require an application process for expungement. In an ideal world, my bill would have had automatic expungement, which is the case in Delaware and California, where officials sweep the records, find out whether a person has a record, for simple possession in effect, and if so, the record is deemed never to have existed. It is gone. It is zapped from the system.

This legislation would require an application. My bill does too, but that is because, as the House well knows, it is a private member's bill, and due to a technicality called the royal recommendation, I could not ask the government to expend money. I was not able to do what has been done south of the border with automatic expungement. That would apply universally and automatically and benefit, disproportionately, indigenous and racialized Canadians.

Let us just stand back from this. We have an activity which is perfectly legal now, but for which hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps that high, have a record for past consumption of cannabis, possession of cannabis, when it was illegal, and now they cannot get on with their lives.

Why does that matter? It matters because blacks cannot rent apartments because they have a criminal record and are on the bottom of the list in a tight housing market. As I will explain later, there are way more people in Halifax who were charged with a cannabis offence and have a record for cannabis than the non-black population.

Believe it or not, it is most glaring in Regina, Saskatchewan. This is government data; this is not me. This is from records disclosed under access to information. An indigenous person in Regina is nine times more likely to have a record for cannabis possession than a non-indigenous person. A black individual is five times more likely in Halifax and three times more likely in Toronto to have the same. An indigenous person in Vancouver is seven times more likely to have a cannabis record. This matters. We would call this law, adverse effects discrimination. We would call this constructive discrimination.

That is why it is so galling that the government wants to bring in a half-baked measure in Bill C-93, rather than doing what is done in California. In San Francisco, there is an automatic intelligence system that simply sweeps the records to make them disappear for those who have a possession of cannabis offence on their record.

Let us contrast this with what the government wants to do today. To its credit, it wants to bring in a bill that says people no longer have to pay $631 for having a criminal record suspended, which is what Mr. Harper introduced, and they no longer have to wait for five years. I congratulate the government for that minor step in the right direction.

In the U.S., a person's record is automatically expunged in the states I have mentioned. These records are deemed not to exist. This matters because it allows people who are asked by a landlord whether they have a criminal record for anything to tell that landlord they do not. When asked by an employer if they have a criminal record, people who have only a cannabis possession charge from several years ago in their background can say they do not, because under expungement, it is deemed not to exist.

The government tells us not to worry and that we do not understand, because there is a human rights statute federally and in all the provinces that says people cannot face discrimination on the grounds that they have a criminal record for which a pardon has been granted. Tell that to an inner city landlord in downtown Halifax or to an inner city employer or small business operator in downtown Vancouver.

It is ludicrous. Why would the government not do the right thing, getting this all done at the same time and done properly, rather than bringing in this half-baked measure? It is too little, too late, which I am sad to say is my theme.

I am not the only one with this opinion. I am pleased to say that the Liberal member of Parliament for Beaches—East York acknowledges the limitations of the bill. He said:

Only full amnesty recognizes the disproportionate impact of cannabis prohibition on people of colour and the fact that cannabis should never have been criminalized in the first place.

Our government’s solution is better than nothing, but it’s not enough to be better than nothing when we have an opportunity to make historic injustices right.

I am quoting a Liberal member, not someone who has an axe to grind, if you will, on this issue. This is a Liberal who realizes we can do so much better.

One of the arguments the Liberals have used to explain why we cannot have expungement is that many people would be affected and it would cost so much money and take so much time. However, that is not true anymore, because we have new data suggesting that only some 10,000 people would be positively affected by the bill. That is not a very large number. Why can we not expunge their records rather than simply giving them this record suspension, after which records move from one filing cabinet to another and can come back and bite people later in a subsequent event if the state deems that they have committed another crime?

What about crimes such as failure to appear? These are called administration of justice offences. They are not like the actual offence of cannabis possession. They occur when people do not pay a fine or do not show up in court. In these situations the criminal justice system is continually on a person's back, even though the root of it all was a cannabis possession charge.

I have been advised that indigenous women are sometimes affected down the road in this way when they have custody issues with their children. This occurs not because of the cannabis offence but because of the other matters on their record that have resulted from that. It is ludicrous.

The government says our most important relationship is with indigenous people. Here it could make a tiny but critically important change in the lives of so many. Why would it let this opportunity pass to expunge the records of people so they could say they have no criminal record, allowing them to get their foot on the social ladder in order to get employment, housing and the like? I do not understand the government's reluctance in this context.

Professor Kent Roach is one of Canada's leading criminal law specialists. Recently, in the Criminal Law Quarterly, he wrote, “The government's approach to cannabis convictions in the wake of legalization is even more problematic than the expungement act,” which is another bill I will come to.

He continued, “It has announced plans to allow the National Parole Board to grant pardons under the Criminal Records Act. This again requires case-by-case applications. This places challenges on the most disadvantaged people who have been convicted of cannabis possession.”

He goes on, “By not relying on expungement, the government's approach leaves applicants vulnerable to records of convictions and arrest being retained by the RCMP and other federal departments and to questions from prospective employers and landlords about whether they ever had a criminal conviction. It falls behind states such as California and Delaware in terms of reform.”

He then goes on and says about my bill that it “...takes a better approach by proposing to expunge cannabis convictions including the destruction of records of convictions.”

I am not here to score political points. I am not even running again in the next election. I am fully convinced that automatic expungement is the way to go. It is what people deserve. I implore the government to amend this bill and do the right thing by so many people who are affected, whose lives are on hold until we get this right.

Record suspension simply removes criminal records from the main database, CPIC, the Canadian Police Information Centre, and puts the data somewhere else, where it can be used prejudicially later and potentially shared with other departments, thereby having a negative effect.

Expungement means those records disappear for all purposes and for all time. A record suspension or pardon indicates the government is forgiving or excusing individuals for criminal behaviour, and that is all; expungement acknowledges it was wrong to criminalize it in the first place.

At this time, let me give the House the other government excuse for not doing the right thing.

It brought in, to its credit, Bill C-66, which was called the Expungement of Historically Unjust Convictions Act. That bill dealt with same-sex sexual activity, which is no longer criminalized but was in the past. The government said it was going to deem those offences to no longer be on a person's record—gone.

I have two things to say about that.

Number one is that since October, from the last statistics, do members know how many people have even bothered to apply, of the 9,000 eligible? It was seven. That hardly gives confidence that this application process is going to make a difference.

Number two is that the government says, “Oh, member for Victoria, do you know what we will do? We will say that this is to be reserved for things that are constitutionally over the line, such as same-sex sexual activity.”

There is no principled reason for that smokescreen. I have talked to criminal law specialists and constitutional specialists across the country who say that this argument is not valid. Second, even if it were valid, which it is not, what about the constructive discrimination I just talked about, the adverse effects discrimination, whereby the policy and application affect blacks and indigenous people dramatically more than others? What about that?

Not doing the right thing for cannabis expungement as for same-sex sexual activity, which the government is prepared to expunge, makes no sense at all. It is another Liberal smokescreen.

I am not here to score political points; I am just trying to persuade the Liberals to do the right thing. Why would they not do it? That is what is so complicated for me to understand.

The NDP has been calling for this measure for years. I will not go through the whole background of it, but there are deficiencies in addition in the bill that is before us today. The Parole Board does not have the resources to do the job, so there are going to be even further backlogs for other applications from people seeking pardons. There is a whole industry, sadly, out there to help people get rid of their criminal records. If members go on the Internet, they will see everybody who wants to help if they give them a few hundred bucks.

The forms are complicated. Members might not think they are, but for a poor person with little education who is living in the inner city, this measure would impose another burden, and I do not understand why, when our friends south of the border figured it out much more readily.

There are also eligibility gaps in Bill C-93. Only those people convicted of simple possession are eligible, meaning anyone with prior record suspensions of crimes related to the simple possession charges will not be able to use this process. I gave the example of failure to appear or not paying the fine or the like. If there is another offence on the record, then they are facing an inability to apply.

Someone pointed out that if a person has a summary conviction offence and then four years down has another cannabis offence, there may be a total wait of nine years to apply under this bill. I do not believe that was intended, but it is a function of the drafting of the bill, according to experts I have consulted. That is problematic.

The Liberals have had six months since they brought in legalization to do this. This bill is maybe four and a half or five pages in English, so how on earth did it take that long? The elephant laboured and brought forth a mouse.

Bill C-75, which was 302 pages, was before the justice committee, and it rammed that one through. This bill is five pages in English and maybe nine pages in total with English and French. It took the Liberals that long to produce this tiny bill, this weak bill. Presumably they can just check it off on the list that another promise was kept, except if the bill dies on the Order Paper, as most people are anticipating.

This is a real problem. This is an opportunity for the government. My hope is that if the private member's bill that I have before Parliament for debate on Thursday goes to the public safety committee at the same time as this bill, perhaps there will be a way in which some of the provisions that I have suggested for expungement could be brought into the bill that is before us and we could get it right for the victims as they are.

It is not just me saying this. The Prime Minister has been quoted as follows: “...there is a disproportionate representation of young people, from minorities and racialized communities, who are saddled with criminal convictions for simple possession as a significant further challenge to success in the job market....” He seems to get it.

The statistics that the government has produced under access to information confirm what I am saying. I am not making up those shocking statistics about overrepresentation of blacks and, particularly, indigenous people. The Prime Minister gets the consequences, so why would the Liberals not do it right? I do not understand.

Professor Doob, the famous criminology professor at the University of Toronto, stated:

There is no justification for forcing those who were convicted to live with a criminal record for behaviour that will soon not be criminal. A procedure for dealing with the problem has been devised by the current government. They should ensure that relevant drug records are expunged for the thousands of Canadians who have them.

Senator Pate, who has been very powerful on this issue in the other place, has made similar arguments, and I hope that those points are taken into account by the Liberals opposite.

I have been working with a very talented lawyer in Toronto, Annamaria Enenajor, who is the director of Campaign for Cannabis Amnesty. She is a prominent lawyer in Toronto and clerked for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. She is volunteering for this important cause and she states:

...the government...leaves the impression that restrictions exist on the government's ability to issue expungements for the offense of simple cannabis possession that are beyond its control. This is false. There is nothing in Canadian law that prohibits our government from issuing expungements for offenses that, in their application, unjustly targeted racialized and indigenous communities. It simply chooses not to. This is a policy decision.

That is the nub of the argument. Let us do it right.

There may be some good arguments in theory. I talked about the theoretical ability to apply the human rights legislation when people have been given pardons and so on, but it does not work in the real world. We have an absolute dearth of money for legal aid, and legal aid rarely covers human rights complaints if one has been discriminated against because of one's record. Theoretically, I guess, the Liberals could hang their hat on that, but they sure have not visited many inner cities if they think that is a viable argument in practice. Many small businesses and landlords draft their own applications and may not be aware of human rights legislation.

We have a historic opportunity in the dying days of this Parliament to do it right. Let us expunge criminal records for small quantity cannabis possession and help those thousands of Canadians who need a head start and a chance to get their foot on the rung in the social ladder. Let us do the right thing for those people as soon as we can.

Procedure and House Affairs

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in light of the discussions that occurred during question period, I seek the unanimous consent of the House to move a motion.

That given the important difference between record suspension, also known as pardons, and expungement and recognizing the government wishes to address this issue through legislation, that notwithstanding any standing order or usual practice of the House, Bill C-415, an act to establish a procedure for expunging certain cannabis-related convictions, be deemed to have been read a second time and referred to a committee of the whole, deemed considered in committee of the whole, deemed reported without amendment, deemed concurred in at the report stage and deemed read a third time and passed.